By Chinelo Obogo
Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) has alleged that Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), operators of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Two (MMA2), Lagos sacked 34 of its members illegally.
The union alleged that the members were sacked Friday November 28, 2022 with “ordinary e-mails” sent to their different boxes with disregard to the rule of law after they were first sent on compulsory leave of absence for 10 days.
The Vice President and Deputy General Secretary of ATSSSAN, Emmanuel Jaja and Frances Akinjole, said during a press conference on Monday that most of those laid off had put in at least a decade on the job with the company.
Akinjole insisted that the action was to witch-hunt its members as its branch chairman, branch secretary, branch treasurer and branch women leader were all affected by the sack. He said the action of the management contravened Section 20 of the Labour Act on engagement and disengagement of staff by any company in the country, maintaining that the union would kick severely against the act of the management.
According to Akinjole, since the terminal operators “grudgingly” accepted that its staff could join the unions, it had continued to intimidate its members in the company.
He explained that the union had on June 16, 2021 concluded the signing of the staff Conditions of Service (CoS) for its members in Bi-Courtney, after a prolonged negotiation with the management, which spanned about three years.
The union leader explained that after the execution of the CoS document, a female member of the union resigned her appointment with the BASL when she could no longer condone the intimidation, and presentation of a cheque for her terminal benefits, which she rejected, became an issue.
He explained that BASL management had used historical (year by year) computation to calculate her exit pay instead of the expected last salary, lamenting that the rejected cheque denied the beneficiary to the tune of about N3,000,000.00.
He maintained that Section 1.12 of the Conditions of Service provides two months’ basic salary per year to be paid to any worker who resigns his or her appointment.
“We have seven executive members in BASL and out of these numbers, four of our executives were issued sack letters. These four people sacked were key members of our union. In all, 37 people were sacked with 34 of them being our members.
“When the same management did a similar thing in 2018, we sacrificed 29 of our members through an uncommon ugly redundancy arrangement. The fallout of the crisis was the grudging acceptance of unionism into the BASL by their management. Series of intimidation of union members has continued in the company.
“We are not out to destroy any company because we are supposed to be partners in progress. We are also not against employers doing whatever they want to do with employers, but as unions, we should be involved in their downsizing, rightsizing or redundancy exercise as it affects our members,” he said.
Also speaking, Jaja said that most of those sacked by the company had been in service of BASL before the coming of unions into the company in 2018.
Jaja insisted that their sack did not follow the rule of law, stressing that BASL had the penchant for disregarding the law of the land.
On the next line of action, Jaja said that the National Executive Council (NEC) of ATSSSAN and its branch chairmen would meet to discuss the way forward.
‘BASL should not undermine anybody. Anytime they want us to go back to the discussion table, we are ready to do so. But the due process must be followed in all we do,” he said.
Recall that BASL had on Friday sacked 37 staff, among who were 34 union leaders and members in the organisation.
Akinjole said over the weekend, the BASL management called out 37 names, out of which were 34 of its members. He said the 37 staff were issued forced 10 days “leave of absence”, with a guarantee that all their entitlements would not be tampered with.